Religiosity can be both beneficial and harmful for happiness. It depends on its operationalization and the measures of religiosity and sociodemographics used, together with cultural and psychosocial factors – still not comprehensively explored. This topic is especially important for religious-affiliated chronic patients such as those diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Religion can deliver a sense of meaning, direction, and purpose in life and be an additional source of support and coping with the stress and limitations connected with the disease. The aim of the present study was to verify whether religiosity, directly and indirectly, through finding meaning in life, is related to one’s level of happiness and whether gender, drinking of alcohol, financial status and age are moderators in this relationship. In sum, 600 patients from Poland who suffered from Multiple Sclerosis were included in the study. Firstly, some gender differences were noticed. In women, religiosity was both directly and indirectly, through finding significance, positively related to happiness. Secondly, it was found that in women, the direct effect of age on happiness was generally negative but affected positively by religiosity but among men age was not correlated with happiness. In the group of women, religiosity and a lower propensity to drink alcohol in an interactive way explained happiness. Thirdly, both in men and women, financial status positively correlated with happiness, but in the group of wealthy men only, religiosity was negatively related to happiness. In conclusion, religion was found to be a valuable and beneficial factor leading to the happiness of Roman Catholic Multiple Sclerosis patients from Poland. They should be encouraged to involve themselves in religion as an effective way to achieve happiness, with the one exception regarding wealthy men.

Background. Access to health services was found to be a major problem for over half of persons with disabilities in Morocco. This has created the need to increase opportunities for community-based rehabilitation activities in this country.The aim of this study was to assess wheelchairs skills of persons with physical disabilities attending the first Wheelchair Skills and Empowerment Camp in Morocco, and their satisfaction with the manual wheelchairs available during the camp activities. Methods. 19 persons (13 male and 6 female) with physical disabilities took part in the project. Mean years since injury or illness was 24 years. The following measures have been used: the Queensland Evaluation of Wheelchair Skills test, and the Quebec User Evaluation of Satisfaction with assistive Technology. Results. Study participants improved their overall wheelchair mobility skills (p=0.002; d=0.20), especially the ability to ascend and descend a ramp (p=0.012; d=0.67). The participants were significantly larger satisfied with the new provided wheelchairs in comparison to their own wheelchairs with regard to five of the satisfaction items i.e. ease in adjusting (p=0.011; d=0.96), safety and security (p=0.014; d=0.97), durability (p=0.037; d=0.81), ease to use (p=0.045; d=0.87), and comfort (p=0.006; d=1.03). Conclusions. Findings of this study suggest that there is a need for structured wheelchair skills training and better-quality wheelchairs for persons with physical disabilities in Morocco. The study also confirmed that community peer-based programmes in low-resource countries can play an important role in rehabilitation in persons with physical disabilities, even many years since their injury or illness.